On the Fritz

I've been finding it hard to work out lately because the TV in the workout room is on the fritz. My grandma always says that and I don't really know what it means, but it seems to apply here so I'm snaggin' it. My nickname was Fritz when I was about ten. Come to think of it, that came from my grandma too. Maybe she nicknamed me that because I'm a freak and I don't always work right, who knows. Regardless, our TV in the workout room doesn't work and it has become a huge deterrant. I like listening to CD's while I'm on the treadmill, but after over a month of that I need some pictures.

This TV has been a piece of junk from the get-go. It's only a 20" and we bought it a year ago. We noticed right away that it had a dent in its side that must have happened during shipping, but we didn't take it back because it was too heavy. We had already hoisted it up into the corner on one of those brackets that comes out from the wall and it would have been way too much hassle to take it down and haul it to a store that may or may not have taken it back, so we just dealt with the dent. They might have thought we had taken a hammer to it ourselves. We should have.

We started noticing a small discolored blob in the lower left corner about a month later. This blob is especially sensitive to red, and I probably only noticed it because the bottom line on ESPN is red and this TV distorted my stats. But we tolerated it. A month ago I tried to turn off this poor excuse for a picture tube after I was done working out, and it completely froze. None of the buttons would respond on the remote or the TV itself, so I unplugged it and plugged it back in and that killed it. It's been completely dead ever since. I called about the warranty, but they said we would have had to pay the labor charges and we didn't want to put $100 into a $150 TV, so there it sat.

Now for the good part! We got a letter a couple of weeks ago asking us to extend a manufacturer's warranty which would include both parts and labor. Score! So we paid $33 to extend the warranty. I called Monday and the troubleshooter determined that it was indeed dead (brilliant) so they're going to hook us up with a brand new TV. It's the same brand so it will probably still be a couple of pieces of chicken shy of a bucket, but at least it will be new. And then I will have no excuse for the workout apathy.

Sincerely,
Fritz